One more field passed—and yet another! Farther and deeper still—till nothing more was seen—till they could forget the whole world, and their own existence, and enter the realm of Fairyland, lost as in some strange dream, like to the marvellous waking vision which they had had but now, in Klemba’s hut!—And, indeed, they still felt the influence, luminous in its vagueness, of those mystic legends they had heard breathed low; they still were attuned to the diapason of wonders and of miracles; and those same fantastic myths were pouring a shower of unearthly blossoms into their souls: entrancement, awe, intense stupefaction, intoxicating bliss, unappeasable desire!
Yes, they were yet wrapped in that rainbow-coloured mantle of marvellous ideal happenings; still, so to speak, they followed in the wake of the wonderful pageant they had seen go by; they traversed strange fabulous lands, and went through all those superhuman scenes and actions, all those wonders, those enchantments, those magical spells. They beheld visions, swaying in the dark, floating along the sky, expanding as they looked, and touching their hearts with such telling power that they could not breathe for dread, but stood pressed close one to the other, mute, terror-struck, and gazing into the opaque bottomless depths of their dreams. And their minds would then blossom forth into the blossoms of fantasy—the beautiful flowers of faith and loving rapture … and they sounded the extremes of admiration and oblivious joy.
Then, returning to earth once more, they would search the night with bewildered eyes, scarce knowing in which world they were, whether those marvels had been realized, or were all mere phantoms and creations of the brain.
“Say, Yagna, are you not afraid?”
“I? I would go with you to the very end of the world—die with you!” she whispered with energy, pressing very close to him.
“Were you waiting there for me?” he asked after a while.
“Dearest, at every opening of the door, I expected you! I went there only for you; and how I feared you would fail to come!”
“Yet, when I came, ye feigned not to see me!”
“Nonsense. Should I look, with folks’ eyes upon me?—Ah, there was that within me which yearned so, I wonder I did not fall off my seat in a swoon.”
“Sweetest!”
“You sat behind me, and I knew it; but I feared to look round—feared to speak: all the time my heart went pit-a-pat, and beat so loud, I think folk must have heard.”
“I thought to find you at the Klembas’, and to leave with you.”
“I meant to run straight home … but ye constrained me. …”
“Against your will? Say, Yagna!”
“Nay … more than once … I thought that this might come to pass!”
“Did you think so? Did you think so?” he whispered, in a passion of love.
“Surely, Antek.—And besides … there … continually … beyond the stile … it was not well with us.”
“True.—Here, none will disturb us. We are alone.”
“Aye, alone! And how thick this darkness is!” she murmured, throwing her arms about his neck, and embracing him with all the vehemence of her passionate soul.
Now there was no longer any wind; only a slight breeze which from time to time caressed and cooled their burning faces. Neither stars nor moon were visible: the sky was louring, covered with thick clouds as with a ragged fleece, and dark-brown as a herd of oxen upon a bare waste field. Things loomed dimly afar, as if seen through expanses of drab smoke, as if the whole world were but a tissue of fogs, of darkness rolling around on every side, of seething murk.
A movement in the air—an uneasy vibration, scarce to be felt, seemed floating forth from the forests, lost in the night.
It was very dark: in the atmosphere, thrilled with a dreary and ominous agitation, they were aware of a dull eerie motion, of strange indefinite vibrations, of vague fearful mutterings and lurking shapes that had no shape! Sometimes, on a sudden, feebly gleaming from out the voluminous dusk, there appeared the spectral pallor of the snowfields; and a few glimmers—chilly, moist, viscous glimmers—would coil and uncoil in snaky folds across the shadows; and again the night would shut her eyelids fast, and the darkness descended with a black impenetrable downpour, in which all things were lost. The eye, no longer able to perceive anything, now sounded the uttermost abyss of this portentous invisibility, whose dull sepulchral deadness benumbed and overwhelmed the mind.—But at times the veil of obscurity was rent in twain, as by some mighty force, and through that tremendous rift one could see the black-hue expanse of heaven, serene and studded with stars.
And now—was it from fields or from huts? from the sky above, or from the gloom-drowned horizons?—who can say? … but there came … trembling … muttering … slinking … what? voices, gleams, scarce audible echoes—call them what you will: the ghosts of things and sounds long ago dead and gone, now haunting the world again, seemed moving to and fro in a ghastly procession, expiring far away, as the light of a star may expire in the abyss.
But these two paid little heed to all this. Within them there raged a tempest; every minute it grew and grew, rolling from heart to heart in a hurricane of hot unspoken desires, of flashing glances, of shuddering pangs, of scorching kisses, of words as stammering and incoherent and inarticulate as is the thunder in the sky:
